After a news story stated that I had evidence, attempted to get it properly checked and the police had refused to have it tested, I got a call from Chief Beckner saying he WOULD have it tested. This story followed.

BOULDER -- Police Chief Mark Beckner has asked a state lab to test possible DNA evidence, given to him by an Internet tipster, with genetic traces found in the JonBenet Ramsey murder investigation.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation also will examine DNA evidence from a former suspect in an unsolved Arapahoe County murder for possible links to the Ramsey case.

Beckner, confirming the testing, said so little is known about the source of the DNA that he can't say if it will produce a meaningful lead.

"I don't have enough information on where it came from to even tell you whether it's worth a look," Beckner said Wednesday. "We're doing it just to cover all our bases, and if something pans out, super, great."

It is at least a new lead in a five-year investigation that has focused on the girl's parents, John and Patsy Ramsey, as suspects in her death. The case has appeared to grind down since a grand jury disbanded without an indictment in 1999.

While police figures say more than 100 suspects have been considered, and people continue to be interviewed, DNA testing has "dwindled down" lately, Beckner said. The number of interviews stood at 590 in June 1998 and increased to "roughly 600" in the past three years, according to city press releases.

While the chief is taking evidence of unknown origin and testing it without the name of a possible suspect in mind, he said it is not an endorsement of a so-called "intruder theory." It still examines the possibility that a stranger murdered JonBenet, 6, whose body was found Dec. 26, 1996.

"I wouldn't characterize it as moving in any direction other than investigating the crime and trying to answer unanswered questions," Beckner said. "And wherever it leads us, it leads us."

]The tipster, who goes by the Internet name Jameson in maintaining a Ramsey case Web site, said the sample is a "personal belonging" of a man who lived in the Boulder area at the time of the murder. It contains hair and bodily fluid traces, she said, and was mailed to her eight months ago by "someone intimate" with the man, who suspected his involvement.

Jameson wanted written assurances from Beckner that he would test the item before she turned it over, but Beckner had been reluctant to give them, she said. She said he verbally agreed last month.

"I can tell you that the person has been talked about in Boulder as a suspect," she said, although she withheld that name from the police.[/font][/size]
[/color] Unknown male DNA was found underneath JonBenet's fingernails and in her panties. The Ramseys are not the source.

"I really do think JonBenet got a piece of her killer, and he left something behind," said Lou Smit, whom Beckner has criticized for taking his intruder theory public. "Some day, that is going to catch him."

Smit said he is "really encouraged" Beckner is doing the DNA testing. "I hope that they do more," he said. "It must be worth something or they wouldn't test it."

Beckner characterized the DNA comparison as part of ongoing laboratory tests. "We are still doing DNA tests, and we are doing DNA tests on some things that have been submitted," he said.

Beckner could not say how many other tests have been performed this year. "It's dwindled down significantly," he said. "There aren't many we ask for now."

Sheriffs' detectives in Arapahoe County received a similar DNA tip from Jameson earlier this year, according to Detective Rick Fahlstedt. Testing showed enough of a link that the person was brought in and gave a voluntary sample, which eliminated that person as a suspect, he said.

Jameson said the person also lived in the Boulder area at the time of the Ramsey murder. She also gave the person's name to Beckner. The chief thinks the CBI may have already examined it for Ramsey links.